Engineering firm owners
Your firm is designed to grow. Are your facilities?
Progress claims, retentions, guarantees, fleet and premises all compete for the same capital. I map the whole position before one facility limits the next.
Civil · Structural · Geotechnical · Mechanical · Electrical · Mining & resources · Chemical & process · Building services · Software · Environmental · Every engineering discipline
Delivery is growing faster than the facilities
Principals stay focused on people, projects and winning work. Facilities set up years ago go unreviewed, cashflow gaps between progress claims get papered over, and growth becomes capped by structure rather than demand.
Facilities
The capital position behind the work
Working capital and overdrafts
Invoice and debtor finance to bridge progress claims
Bank guarantees for contracts and leases
Asset and equipment finance for vehicles, plant, survey and testing gear, IT and CAD/BIM hardware
Commercial property for an office, yard or workshop
Business acquisition and partner buy-outs
Facility reviews and restructures
What is carrying the load?
I treat the review as a structural review of your capital position: what is carrying the load, where the redundancy is, and what fails first. I benchmark pricing, covenants and line fees, map the GSA and cross-collateralisation, and identify release conditions that may preserve future options.
Rent versus ownership is tested over a practical design life, including transferred outgoings, acquisition costs, debt amortisation and the opportunity cost of the deposit. I do not provide tax or ownership-structure advice; that remains with your accountant.
Common assumptions
What you've been told, and why it's wrong
| Told | Why it's wrong |
|---|---|
| Your pricing is competitive for a firm your size. | That remains untested until the facility, security, covenants and available headroom are benchmarked. |
| A GSA over everything is required. | It is a common starting position, not a universal rule. Security requirements vary by selected lender, facility and credit assessment. |
| The family home is needed as additional security. | It may be requested, but release conditions and alternative security can sometimes be considered, subject to lender criteria. |
| Cross-collateralising keeps it simple. | It can also restrict asset releases and future borrowing. The trade-off should be visible before documents are signed. |
| Bank guarantees have to sit with your main bank. | Often assumed. Guarantee facilities can be benchmarked and may sit separately, subject to selected lender criteria and policy change. |
| Buying the premises will hurt working capital. | That is a modelling question, not a rule. The answer depends on deposit, transferred outgoings, facility structure and retained headroom. |
Resource
Commercial Rent vs Buy
Compare the rent on your office, yard or workshop with the repayments on a comparable commercial property. All figures are illustrative.
Open this resourceFAQ
Questions about this position
If your accountant wants to talk through the numbers first, I'm happy to.
General information only. It does not consider your personal circumstances. Eligibility, loan-to-value limits, professions covered and lender policies vary and change. Subject to lender credit approval.
Put the real numbers in front of you.
I'll read the position, show the calculation and explain the trade-offs, no guesswork, no rework.